I used to think identity theft was just an over-hyped gimmick to get people to pay for credit reports and monitoring. That is, until my checking account was cleared out. Turns out, most major banks are not well equipped to handle ID theft, or even your money for that matter.
Late Thursday night, I got a call from the Phoenix Police Department. The officer said they had a subject in custody who had two forms of ID with my information on it. Then the guy asked what I looked like. At first I thought it was a prank because people were joking around the office that I missed work on a Monday because I “lost my wallet”. As the officer began rattling off my personal information, I quickly realized this was no joke.
They said they caught this guy at BestBuy trying to use somebody else’s credit card to buy a whole bunch of computers. Apparently BestBuy’s register system pops up an alert code if there is somebody trying to use a card that has been reported lost or stolen, and they call the cops. Impressive. The police caught the guy red handed. With drugs. And paraphernalia. And a bunch of people’s personal information.
At the time, I thought they got the sucker before he could do any real damage. But just to be safe, I checked with Bank of America. I was shocked to see my account was overdrawn by almost $300. Last I checked, I had almost 40k in there.
A quick review turned up 5 suspicious transactions. Two were deposits, and three were withdrawals. All five transactions occurred *inside* five different Bank of America banking centers. What amazed me most is the final two transactions. A withdrawal of 26k. And later that day, another withdrawal of 12.5k. Way to spot suspicious activity Bank of America. They handed the guy almost 40k in cash in one day.
Turns out the first two transactions where not just deposits. They were checks written to me, Christopher Hooley. The first one was $6200. The guy kept $5k and left $1200 in my account. The next one was a day later at a different center for $7500. Again, the guy kept $5k. I saw the debit slip online, and this guy’s signature wasn’t even a remote attempt to copy mine. To make matters worse, it turns out he was forging checks from another valley business, who subsequently called the police on ME!
After seeing his writing, all of the sudden it felt personal. That was MY name, written as sloppily as I had ever seen it. Now I had to find out who this guy was.
A detective from the Phoenix PD was already assigned to my case. I never actually even spoke with him. I sent the detective an email with the list of fraudulent transactions on my bank account and that was pretty much all he needed. But I had his email address, so I shot him an email asking who the thief was.
The detective told me the suspect’s name was Christopher Cantrell. An identity thief heavily involved in drugs. That’s all I needed to know to find his case on MCSO.org. And right there in front of me was his mug shot and list of charges. I dug further on Instant Checkmate and found even more garbage on this guy. This guy, is a total low life.
Check this out:
CANTRELL, CHRISTOPHER MCKAY #P438548
Booked: 07-09-2008
Sex: MALE
Race: WHITE
D.O.B: 10-11-1975
Height: 5’09
Weight: 200
Eye: BROWN
Hair: BLACK
In Custody For:
001 FELONY COUNT OF DANGEROUS DRUG-POSS FOR SALE
001 FELONY COUNT OF THEFT-CONTROL PROPERTY
001 FELONY COUNT OF ADMIT TKT-FRAUD CREATION/POSS
001 FELONY COUNT OF FORGERY-W/WRITTEN INSTRUMENT
005 FELONY COUNT OF FORGERY-POSS FORGED INSTRUMENT
001 FELONY COUNT OF FORGERY-POSS FORGED INSTRUMENT
001 FELONY COUNT OF FORGERY-POSS FORGED INSTRUMENT
001 FELONY COUNT OF FORGERY-OFFERS FORGED INSTRUM
001 FELONY COUNT OF TAKING IDENTITY OF ANOTHER
001 FELONY COUNT OF TAKING IDENTITY OF ANOTHER
001 FELONY COUNT OF TAKING IDENTITY OF ANOTHER
001 FELONY COUNT OF DANGEROUS DRUG-POSS/USE
001 FELONY COUNT OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA-POSSESS/USE
As you can see from the picture above the huge rap sheet, he’s pretty much a spitting image of me. So it’s understandable why 5 separate bank of America branches where confused, and allowed him to make huge cash withdrawals. He has trusting eyes.
But just for conjecture’s sake, here’s a picture of me.
The moral of this story is, if you want to steal somebody’s identity, you don’t need to mess with all that online stuff. Just get somebody’s info, make a fake license with your picture on it, and walk right into any Bank of America branch and just ask them to hand you the money in cash. It doesn’t matter if you look like a doper, or even if you’re on drugs at the time. Doesn’t even matter if you know your victim’s signature. All you need is their name and address and a fake ID, and you can clean out any Bank of America account!
In my next post. I’ll explain the aftermath and how Bank of America’s service is only second to their ability to protect your money from identity thieves. Stay tuned.
July 26th, 2008 on 4:48 pm
Seems like the thing that should be immediately done is to try to freeze your accounts if something like this happens. If the bank won’t freeze it or you suspect that they might not do it properly, get your cash (not in the form of a cashier’s check because they might lock up the check if the cash is somehow drained another way) out of every account and move you cash to another bank immediately. You can always move back after a while. Also remember, a straight debit card is not protected like a credit card is with the minimum loss of $50.
July 26th, 2008 on 4:51 pm
I used to work for a bank as a teller, and this is just carelessness on BOAs part. I always made an effort to view people’s transaction history if they did anything more than a couple of hundred that day. For something like 28k, that would’ve gone to my supervisor first.
July 26th, 2008 on 5:00 pm
The tellers that gave that prick your money are probably fired. I’m a bank manager, and there are policies in-place at all banks that should have prevented this (check signature for large transactions). Luckily, there are federal laws that require the bank to refund your money as long as there is no negligence on your end.
July 26th, 2008 on 5:12 pm
I didn’t even loose any ID. I deposited a large sum in B of A. Ten days later an ATM won’t let me withdraw any $$ because I’d already taken out $1500 that day!! My online account says I’ve withdrawn $2500 in the last 3 days; $500 from an atm at 7-11 in San Diego then $1500 from inside 2 banks (again B of A) in Los Angeles the next day, then another $500 from inside a B of A in Westlake Village (40 miles west of L.A.)the day after that. I filed a report with B of A’s Fraud Division. They said this happens 24/7 & will (maybe) prosecute only if it’s an organized ring of thieves, not just one guy! I got my $$ back because the bank took pictures of that ‘hole but never found out who did it. How the hell did they copy my ATM card & PIN from a card I never lost??!!?? My guess: inside job at B of A.
July 26th, 2008 on 5:27 pm
My bank requires that i slide my ATM card and enter my PIN before any deposit or withdrawal in addition to the signature and ID. Not sure if BoA does this, you might ask if they put a note on your account to require it or find a different bank that does it.
July 26th, 2008 on 5:33 pm
Those tellers need to be fired. Anyone who wants to take out that much would usually have to go through many double checks, ESPECIALLY if it’s from an account that doesn’t have a history of that. This is really bad. Get a new bank.
July 26th, 2008 on 7:04 pm
A really easy method of account verification would be the use of a password. Why isn’t a pin required to withdraw money? It really should be.
July 26th, 2008 on 7:06 pm
i had my checking account overwithdrawn almost by 500 dollars i filled a report with b of a and then 6 months later when i was paying for my college courses with my b of a credit card i was told i was for my limit by 1000 dollars when i went online to look at the transactions my address had even changed to a po box in another county when i told the fraud department all of this they said that there was nothing they could because they didnt know if i was the real me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
July 26th, 2008 on 7:19 pm
So, you didn’t report your card missing to the Bank? That’s just negligent on your part. Even if you thought the wallet was just missing, it’s easier to get a new card activated then to let someone have access to your checking account. Furthermore, check cards are usually not theft protected, only credit cards, and only if you report that they’re missing within a certain time fame. Also, the guy who used your card doesn’t look too dissimilar to you that he couldn’t have passed for you at a store or the bank. Did you have your picture on your card, or do you just expect the bank tellers to know what you look like?
Lastly, I believe that your title needs a comma (Way to Spot Suspicious Activity, Bank of America) and the term simile is an expression comparing two objects using “like” or “as”. I believe the term you were looking for is “hyperbole”.
Sorry about your troubles :-/
July 26th, 2008 on 7:50 pm
What are you doing with 40K in your checking account dude?? Holy Crap!
July 26th, 2008 on 8:01 pm
Wow, I’m never going to use BoA..
July 26th, 2008 on 8:48 pm
Might have gotten your account number from the ATM, they were running a scam a bit ago where they modified the atm reader with a slick bit of hardware that stores the card information from the last card used. Used to return a bad swipe so people would just go to another ATM, but they may have evolved it so it passes the information on.
Wish they’d put those brains to better use :/
July 26th, 2008 on 9:05 pm
That sucks ass man, I can’t believe that someone could just withdraw $40K from your account, talk about highway robbery. I hope you get money back, they should give you extra money because of emotional distress, or you could sue em for it… lol.
July 26th, 2008 on 9:10 pm
Had a similar situation with Bank of America; cleared out 30k from a business account via a stolen wallet – bank of america is incredible! They did recover the money fairly quickly – but not all of it; the thief just walked into the bank – no questions asked…
July 26th, 2008 on 9:39 pm
Dude why do you keep 42K in cash on your bank account?
July 26th, 2008 on 10:09 pm
I have a bank of america account and tried to withdraw 3k of my own money and had to answer a slu of questions, show my id my debit card and wait for a manager to authorize my account before they would give me the money. Maybe you just got a shitty branch, then again I live in missouri so may have different laws they have to abide by here
July 26th, 2008 on 10:16 pm
yeah i got money stolen from my account, boa refunds the money temporarily, then takes it back saying i authorized it, and they say i must of authorized because there’s no proof that someone stole it, so it must be me. boa didn’t even look at the security tapes from the atm because, “its not one of ours, so we cant look at it.” i have to go the the police so they can look at the tapes, gt off your ass boa you do it why do i bank with you if im doing all the work.
July 26th, 2008 on 10:45 pm
Sorry to hear that BofA is so daft. I’m also sorry to hear that you are a douche bag.
July 26th, 2008 on 11:12 pm
BofA also has a long history of being willing to give out all kinds of information about your account over the phone even when in the notes, it says there’s passwords and not to give out some information…they just click through the warning pop-ups and blather away. Look it up. I know folks who’ve set up all the security they can, tested it, it fails, and then try to get anyone, someone supervisory to take enough responsibility to fix the problem. Never happens.
July 26th, 2008 on 11:17 pm
@GG Tony P mentioned it earlier. There are handheld devices that can scan credit cards magstripes. Can be done easily by a gas station attendant, any retail person – anybody that you hand your card to for a purchase. Make sure you keep an eye on your card from the time it leaves your wallet – if you see somebody go under the counter with it watch out. From the information the scanners obtain people print credit cards with magstripes, 2d barcode etc. All of this is readily available online and yes very scary
July 27th, 2008 on 12:30 am
The funny thing is that with any bank, all they have to do is set up an alert system in which they ask THE CUSTOMER how much they want to a withdraw to be before they contact you for verification. If you would have set your ‘withdrawal alert limit’ at 2k then you would have been notified for verification. its a win/lose situation for them I know, just because they have every intention of verifying it is you (to be honest they don’t want blog posts like this and we all know it) but they also want to make sure that Bob from the office can withdrawal $5k when he needs to without being hassled. It is a fine line they walk and I don’t envy then, but by asking the consumer and planning a dynamic system that allows for flexibility in choice, they could save a lot of hassle and bad PR (like your post). Honestly, I agree completely with you and think it is a shitty situation that BoA could have handled better with a better ‘Alert’ system, but in the end they need to allocated resources for the system to work, and with the current stock price compared to < 2 years ago, I don’t see them being in that position.
July 27th, 2008 on 5:50 am
Wow, that is truly scary! I use BOA as well and am really thinking of changing bnaks now. Unbelievable!
July 27th, 2008 on 6:34 am
Who leaves 40k sitting in a checking account? At least buy a CD or put it in a money market…
July 27th, 2008 on 11:41 am
I kind of think the tellers who so willingly handed your money over should be say, “fired?” I wonder how well they sleep at night. I wonder if they bank at Bank of America?
Soooo Sad!
July 27th, 2008 on 1:17 pm
hey chris,
I have a personal experience with BOA that actually goes against your claim. i recently bought a new laptop with my card and seemed to have trouble making a payment of $1,000. after three tries, I called up BOA and found out that they had held that transaction due to suspicious activity. they needed me to verify the transactions before my card was unblocked again. i was definitely surprised by their action but also felt safe at the same time.
Anyway,I hope things work out well for you and that your money will get back to you. Good luck with everything.
July 27th, 2008 on 3:11 pm
I’m glad I closed me BoA account when they lost my direct deposit.
July 27th, 2008 on 3:58 pm
Chris, this is a terrible shituation, sorry to hear about it bro.
I was seriously thinking about switching my business banking to BofA, since they are on both coasts… after reading this, I’m staying away. I’m with Wells Fargo, who is notorious for daily limits and making it tough to access your own money – I’m thinking that’s not such a bad thing now.
Hope it all works out, I’m sure it will, but I an only imagine the Irish rage.
July 27th, 2008 on 7:48 pm
This is the exact reason I have multiple accounts– ALL with locally owned & operated banks. To the posted who said “know your customer”, as a former IT Director for a local bank I can’t stress enough that while giving up a national chain of banks may seem like an inconvenience, the level of customer service & attention to detail (they “know their customers!!”) is unparalleled.
Please Support Your Local Business (and Keep Fayetteville Funky)
July 28th, 2008 on 12:13 am
Hey man – saw your thing on consumerist.com and then read it here. My total sympathies. I HATE BOA. But at this point I do want to know – have they refunded your money, or are they fighting you. What’s going on now?
Scott
July 28th, 2008 on 12:17 am
Hey – further thoughts. I would like to know if you have
1. Gotten your state’s Attorney General involved going after BOA – they can strip their corporate charter in your state if it comes to that.
2. Threatened to sue them for the amount and damages, etc.
3. Complained to the Controller of the Currency that decides whether they can do business nationally.
July 28th, 2008 on 8:49 am
my parents (who live abroad) had an account with BoA and some guy managed to close the CD and withdraw money out of a savings account and the CD through ATM transactions. i spent hours on the phone with BoA since you get assigned different handlers every time and you pretty much have to start from square 1 every time. eventually, i got most of the money back except for roughly $150 which they didnt have the brains to calculate – the interest on the CD and the early termination fee confused them, but i was glad that it was almost resolved at the end.
July 28th, 2008 on 2:37 pm
Wow.
All these people blaming BoA.
BoA tries to be friendly and efficient and you complain.
The guy had a fake ID (Yes, Chris said in these comments that he had a fake ID). I assume he made a fake with his photo and Chris’ information. It’s not like they just waltzed in without any ID and took the money.
You should be more worried that this could happen at just about any bank.
But back to the other part of my statement. I recall a story on Digg.com a few months back when a guy with proper ID tried to withdraw a few thousand dollars and they bank hassled him about it.
See, you can’t have it both ways.
What is important here is not that the guy was able to dupe the dumb, minimum-wage teller but rather what Bank of America is going to do to make things right with Chris.
July 28th, 2008 on 3:09 pm
Chris,
To say it is unimportant that B of A had a “dumb, minimum wage teller” giving away my money to a crackhead is crazy. Who else is to blame for handing my money to a criminal who didn’t look like me, sign like me, write like me etc.
He even misspelled my address. Bank of America is *responsible* to take care of my money. It’s what they do, it’s why we have banks.
I wish the teller who didn’t give the guy his money was one of the 5 that this guy was able to fool. I can see complaints either way. But this isn’t just “a complaint” dude, the bank gave my money away because SERIES of a careless mistakes. Not once, but 5 times. At 5 different banks!
Man, I just don’t know how you can call a bank giving an identity theif 26k then 12k later that day “efficient and friendly” because to me it sounds like “lazy and careless”
July 29th, 2008 on 3:23 am
And people wonder why banks charge outrageous fees for everything. Talk to a teller and it’s $5. Go to some other ATM and it’s $4.50. This is why…because their security policies are so lax that anyone can walk in and just be handed free money. They have to make up for that loss somehow, so they take it from everyone a little at a time. It’s like some kind of reverse communism…take a little from everyone and hand it out in big chunks to a select few people who just happen to be a little bolder than the rest.
August 14th, 2008 on 9:29 pm
My husband and I have banked with B of A for 37 years until we were victims of identity theft. In spite of filling out multiple forms, calling their 1 800 number, writing 3 letters (faxed, emailed and regular mail), it has now been 9 weeks without even a letter or call from anyone. Their customer service even to a long time client is nonexistent. Wouldn’t you think someone would have noticed 9 debits on the same day and called us?? We think it must be an inside job.
We did discover from calls to the help line that the thief had even placed a “pin number” on the account for online calls and directed calls to a cell phone they opened in our name with our information. That was a treat to get removed.
It was easier for the thief to deal with the bank than it was for us.
We have even tried getting AARP on their case. I agree they do not seem to care or else the problem is so huge they are afraid to disclose it. I’ve now resorted to responding to blogs now (for the first time ever) because apparently some of the bigger companies are actually monitoring these blogs. Thanks to this blog I now have the Chairman’s email address – but no doubt it probably goes to one of their minimum wage helpful “help desk” phone reps who do nothing but type our request into cyperspace.
Signed “broke now but wiser”.
August 23rd, 2008 on 6:53 am
Christopher Cantrell was “erroneously released”. Anyone look up his case history on the supreme court site or the superior court site for Arizona?
here’s a link to the bench warrant that didn’t come out til July 1, 2008. He was released in January of 2008. It took them 5 months to realize they had released an inmate on accident.
http://www.courtminutes.maricopa.gov/docs/Criminal/072008/m3254620.pdf
This is the state’s fault.
See he was in a Texas federal prison and served his couple year sentence there. Well he had ten more years to serve for the state after that. so Arizona was supposed to come pick him up “extradite” him. so he could continue serving the rest of his sentence- 10 years!
But they didn’t do that. Instead the Feds handed him a bus ticket to Phoenix and told him to check in with his parol officer.
To make matters worse!!!!!!!
In February 2008, Mr. Cantrell was arrested and charged with forgery and taking the identity of another. He was arrested by Glendale police. Then he spent 4 days in jail downtown and then Phoenix scratched the charges!!!!!!
They had him in their possession but they gave him up and let him walk free out of there on Valentine’s Day!
See while Mr. Cantrell was free between January 11 2008 and July 9 2008….. he was considered State Property.
What stupid freakin idiots they are!~!!! They can’t keep track of the inmates and accidently let one go?! WTF!
Doesn’t that mean that all the victims could technically sue the state for making such a huge mistake.
When it comes down to it, none of this would have ever happened if he was still in prison where he was SUPPOSED to be! None of this would have happened if Arizona would have been more on the ball and picked up their Federal Convict to finish up his 10 year sentence!
Just think if this guy would have murdered someone while he was out on the loose, the victim’s family could and would probably sue the state because they are at fault!
September 3rd, 2008 on 12:50 pm
I wish I would have ran into this blog just a few weeks ago, my purse was stolen at a gas station and someone used my information at a Wachovia to do the exact same thing. This has been about 3 weeks and Wachovia has still not refunded me my money or contacted me. I’m just amazed by this and I didn’t have the money to cover the checks they deposited and cashed the same day. But a teller from another Wachovia allowed this person to cash a check and gave them all my new account information. Last week my paycheck went into this account and because it was still in the negative they took my paycheck to date i haven’t recovered any of my funds from Wachovia, not even a return call.
December 4th, 2008 on 8:47 am
I am glad he got caught
December 17th, 2008 on 7:21 pm
Watch out for TCF Bank too. One of their employees stole my identity. TCF officials would not even cooperate with the local police department when they were investigating. I try to warn everyone I can about TCF. They go far beyond not caring, they seem to delight in employing thieves at their branches in Jewel food stores. BEWARE!!
January 5th, 2009 on 10:21 pm
Yeah, you routinely keep 40K in your bank. OK. I believe you. Sure I do.
March 27th, 2009 on 12:00 am
Wow, what an amazing story. I will put a link up on my new site about protection yourself from identity theft (www.identitytheftprotection.info). The reality of the problem is evident here. Is not just an online problem, it’s a real, offline problem too! You’re so lucky they caught the guy!!
April 6th, 2009 on 3:02 pm
Wow, the SAME thing just happened to me with Bank of America, my wallet was stolen a month ago, i canceled all cards and accounts, opened new accounts and someone walked into 4 different BOA locations over 2 days with a fake ID from another state and removed over 7k from my accounts. The person did not have my new account numbers but BOA apparently volunteered the information, including ssn! There was even an extra alert on my account stating that I had been a theft victem earlier in the month. Steller work BOA, sloppy and disgusting.
June 10th, 2009 on 3:55 am
My husband and I have recently been victims of identity theft at Bank of America. It was an inside job. On February 20, 2009 at 2:00 pm we walked into a branch office in downtown LA to change the address for all our accounts (2 checking and our credit card with the bank). One of the employees asked to see our CA driver licenses and made the changes for us. We also gave the bank our unlisted phone number. No other entity had our new address and phone number at the time. The employee noticed we had just received a large sum of money through a wire transfer and asked what we intended to do with that money. We joked that we were planning on spending it. He did not try to sell us any banking products or services. He elicited some other (it seemed to us) innocent information playing the I-speak-Spanish-too card. We left and did not think much of the whole exchange.
About a month later I was paying some bills on line and noticed that there was a new checking account under my first name only, with a deposit of $50.00. When I called the bank to inquire, I was told the account had been opened in Tennessee. No money was taken from our accounts at the time. The bank froze de fraudulent account and placed red flags on both my and my husband’s profiles. I filed a police report for my protection. I also filed a claim with the bank. I requested hard copies of the documents and information used to open the account. Somebody had used a fake CA Driver License with the wrong first name and my Social Security Number. The account was opened under my first name only (no last name). I have never lost my Driver License, and my Social Security card is in a safe overseas! I told the bank it looked like it had been an inside job and their reply was that I could not know who else had that information. NOBODY ELSE AT THE TIME. We kept using our old address for several months.
I thought that was it but kept cheking my accounts online. I even called the bank again to make sure that the red flags on our information were in place.
A month after I discovered the first fraudulent account I realized that $8,000.- had been withdrawn from our account at a branch in Connecticut and another cheking account had been opened under my name with that money. Later that day the thieves had taken $4000.- from that account. They also opened a savings account. I called the bank immediately. They froze the fraudulent accounts right away but did nothing to my accounts. It took me three hours to be able to freeze our accounts as well so that the thieves would not be able to empty our accounts early in the morning on the East Coast (we live on the West Coast). Their calling centers kept closing and I was not able to talk to someone live until 12:10 am the following day. I was told we would have to go to a branch office the following morning with two forms of ID. It took us more than the two forms of ID and over an hour to be able to wirthdraw all our money from the bank. We did receive the money that was stolen from us a few days later. I filed another police report, and three more claims with the bank regarding the money that had been stolen and the two fraudulent accounts that had been opened under my name. Needless to say, we are banking elsewhere. Again I told them it was an inside job, again I was dismissed. Again I requested hard copies of the transactions. This time they used a fake CA Drived license with the wrong first name, my SS# and a dummy ATM card from Bank of America with my real number. The card was fake and they did not swipe it. All this time my real card was in my wallet. And they still refused to acknowledge that it was an inside job.
About a week later, we received a letter regarding yet another fraudulent cheking account but this time it had been opened under my husband’s name. He was out of the country at the time and it took me several hours to be able to file a claim regarding the fraud under his name. And yet, somebody was able to open an acount under his name even with red flags on his profile.
I hope this does not happen to anyone else.